Tag: mac archie’s girls collection

MAC Archie’s Girls Pearlglide Eyeliners ($16.50 for 0.04 oz.) includes four shades: Black Swan (black with gold pearl), Designer Purple (violet with pearl), Lord It Up (bronze with pearl), and Petrol Blue (deep navy with pearl). Also, all of these shades are part of the permanent range, so if you don’t care about special packaging, you can grab the permanent version (standard black packaging) for $15.00–$1.50 less.

There are (at present) some stocking issues, as both Black Swan and Lord It Up are missing-in-action. They were up briefly, and I was able to add them to my cart, but by the time the Pearlmattes were purchasable the two eyeliners were removed from my cart. I wasn’t able to actually purchase them, and they have since been fully removed from the listing (not even as “coming soon!” or “sold out.” It might be a stocking or manufacturing issue, but if other retailers and counters/stores have them available, then hopefully online will eventually have them, too.

Black Swan is a dark black with subtle brown undertones and blue/silver shimmer–it looks silver straight no, then flashes a little to blue at an angle. It has great color payoff in a single pass and is buildable–it doesn’t bunch up or skip if you go back and forth. (Part of Betty’s products.)

Designer Purple is a violet purple with subtle red undertones and silver sparkle. This had decent pigmentation in one stroke, but it was less buildable than the other shades. For a purple eyeliner, it is pretty good. The sparkle in this shade is particularly chunky. Urban Decay Delinquent is more muted. (Part of Veronica’s products.)

Lord It Up is a medium-dark brown with yellow-brown undertones and a gold/copper shimmer. It had decent to good color payoff in a single pass, and it was also rather buildable. It is similar to Urban Decay Corrupt. (Part of Betty’s products.)

Petrol Blue is a rich, navy blue with lighter navy blue shimmer. It had fairly good color in a single go, and it was also buildable. For dupes, you can see comparisons to other navy blues here. (Part of Veronica’s products.)

Pearlglides are soft and very creamy, but in my experience, they wear well. I get a full eight hours with all of these shades without the colors migrating, smudging, or fading. They’re rather pigmented in a single stroke, but one pass back and forth is usually enough for full opacity and the texture isn’t very waxy, so they build up color well. One word of caution: be careful if you wear them on your lower lash line not to get them on the water line, because the sparkles in the eyeliner can be very irritating to the eye. (This, of course, will depend on your sensitivity.) As far as I know, these are not waterline safe, which makes sense, given the sparkly nature of the pencils.

It settles into lip lines, and it looks a little thick on the lips. It has fairly good opacity, though, as it is semi-opaque and covers most of my lip freckle. There is some translucency all around, so the natural lip color will come through and, depending on your natural lip color, may alter the resulting color. Despite it having a thicker, tackier consistency (but on par with MAC’s Lipglass formula), it only lasted two and a half hours on me. It was neither drying nor hydrating during the time I wore it.

It settles into lip lines, and it looks a bit more like a stain than a lip color. I think it would look better applied, blotted, and left as a residual stain or else topped with a gloss on top, because it can look somewhat uneven on its own. The consistency has a slick feel, but I still find that Cremesheens kind of drag on the lips; I think it might be that the texture is on the thinner side. It wore for three and a half hours, and it was noticeably drying–which is par for the course with my experience wearing Cremesheens. I know other readers have better luck and find them hydrating, so consider how your lips react to the finish.

It’s incredibly opaque–completely covers my lip freckle with not even a shadow coming through. The texture is creamy enough to glide on without skipping or dragging on the lips, but it doesn’t slip-slide around during the day, so it also didn’t feather or bleed on me. It wore exceptionally well, coming in at six hours, and it also left behind a stain. It was just a tiny bit drying over time.

MAC is no stranger to shades like these, though, and while absolutely lovely in so many ways, you may already have something like it in your stash. If it’s the kind of shade you wear often, then you’ll probably note the slight differences between all of them. If you rarely do, you could skip.

MAC Flatter Me Pearlmatte Face Powder ($30.00 for 0.35 oz.) is described as a “golden peach base with coral hearts.” The base color is a warm peach with a soft, frosted finish (and it is reminiscent of Cream Soda in some ways). The hearts are a medium pink-coral with a subtle golden sheen. When everything is mixed together, the resulting shade is a soft, pinky-coral with a light golden sheen. It’s slightly warm-toned. MAC Legendary is just a touch pinker. MAC Immortal Flower is much, much pinker. Tarina Tarantino Feather is brighter, pinker. Guerlain Blush G is pinker and has a stronger sheen. MAC Shell Pearl is similar but a touch more muted.

I had the same problem with Flatter Me as I did Veronica’s Blush–the hearts did not want to yield color at all. I took a metal spatula to it and started scraping off flakes of it, so I could at least show the color on the skin. What you’re seeing on my skin are chunks of the product smoothed out! It seems better when you really pass the brush back and forth a few times, because the combined color is tinted pink enough that clearly there is some payoff coming from those hearts!

The texture is very soft to the touch with a finely-milled powder that does kick up some powder. On the skin and blended out, it doesn’t look powdery, and the finish is a soft shimmer-sheen so it doesn’t emphasize the skin’s texture or pores. This shade lasted eight hours well, and after nine hours, I noticed some minor fading, but it had good wear overall. Because of the overall lightness of the color, it may not show up well on deeper skin tones; on my medium complexion, it shows up as a kiss of pink-coral. Of all the products not to sell out, this one surprised me the most–a coral face product with hearts–I still can’t believe it.

MAC Cream Soda Blush ($23.00 for 0.21 oz.) is described as a “light neutral coral” with a satin finish. It’s a light-medium peach with orange and very slight pink tones. The finish looks mostly matte initially, but the more you blend and buff it out, the more the subtle satin sheen comes through. MAC My Highland Honey is much, much more orange. MAC Melba is darker–it’s like the richer, more intense sister. Chanel Espiegle is similar, though a touch more orange and less peach. NARS Gina is darker and more orange. I suspect MAC Peaches is a bit more beige.

The blush has good color payoff, and it is true-to-pan, but as such a light color, it may not show up well on darker complexions. I’m around NC25/NC30, and it just barely shows up when I applied it; on my skin tone, it looks like a soft bit of warmth on the cheek. If you have natural redness in your cheeks, the peachy coloring of this blush should help neutralize it. The texture of the blush is soft, finely-milled, and smooth–but there is a bit of excess powder that kicks up. It looked good at the seventh hour of wear, but by nine hours, it was mostly faded.